What is Medical School Like?

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CaliSurferDoc

CaliSurferDoc

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Best response I've seen...
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This is So Ironic, We had a Med student talk at my School (Benedictine Univeristy) and he said the material bombards you like you are drinking out of a fire hydrant. And he went to a Med school in the Chi. hmmm, I wonder if ChiDO was the presenter today?
 
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BenUstudent said:
This is So Ironic, We had a Med student talk at my School (Benedictine Univeristy) and he said the material bombards you like you are drinking out of a fire hydrant. And he went to a Med school in the Chi. hmmm, I wonder if ChiDO was the presenter today?
Click to expand...
You don't know what that word means.
 
BenUstudent said:
This is So Ironic, We had a Med student talk at my School (Benedictine Univeristy) and he said the material bombards you like you are drinking out of a fire hydrant. And he went to a Med school in the Chi. hmmm, I wonder if ChiDO was the presenter today?
Click to expand...

Possible, but I've heard it referred to that way on several occasions

I think it's just a very effective mental picture to paint.
 
Ghost22 said:
Possible, but I've heard it referred to that way on several occasions

I think it's just a very effective mental picture to paint.
Click to expand...

ironic != coincidental
 
Frazier said:
I have heard from several reliable accounts that it is just like warm apple pie...:xf:
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I read one news article about a kid who did try the American Pie thing with a hot apple pie. He had to go the emergency room with burns all over his junk.
 
Medical School is like eating 5 pancakes every day. Not a big deal so long as you eat them every day. But, what if you don't want to eat pancakes one day? Well then you have to eat 10 pancakes the next day or 6 pancakes for five days. Pretty soon you end up with 40 pancakes to eat and only a day to do it in.

I stole this metaphor.
 
morning said:
I read one news article about a kid who did try the American Pie thing with a hot apple pie. He had to go the emergency room with burns all over his junk.
Click to expand...

Damn I hope he's not disfigured down there for life? cuz that would suck ;):laugh:...

on the other hand a dude that dum di dum dumb maybe shouldn't practice procreating >.>
 
I LOVE pancakes too!!! Man, I cannot WAIT for medical school. :laugh:
 
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I personally cannot wait to get pimped on all the different layers of the abdomen.
 
Just burning your junk won't incapacitate you from reproducing. Blame the reproductive endocrinologists.
 
A 5 second dictionary search doesn't make someone a gunner, and no, irony =/= coincidence
 
You guys are getting off topic. So to answer the OPs questions I would say that med school is like getting into the ring with Mike Tyson after some quick boxing lessons. You're gonna get your face pummeled in multiple times but you gotta stay on your feet and fight back. However, unlike the poor fool fighting Mike in the analogy, if you survive you get to earn hundreds of thousand of dollars for the rest of your life instead of a one time X amount of money for broken teeths and nose.
 
Last edited:
It may be too late for a post with regards to the OP' original statement as this thread has kinda gone in the direction of condescension and internetisms, but I'll try and take a stab at the OP.

First off, I think you're experience in med school depends a lot on who you are, so let me leave it at I am a traditional 23 year old male student not in a serious relationship. I can only speak as to the first two years--the academic component. I think my lack of commitments has allowed me to be more relaxed in med school and enjoy it more because I never really feel like doing work for med school is like robbing peter to pay paul: I know people who are married and have children who find med school very taxing when it is stripping time away from people who need them, but that's not personally something that has been an issue for me.

I'm really tired of the firehose metaphor, yeah there is a lot of material, but when people put it that way they make it sound like you are required to learn 10,000 digits of pi. Some of the material is genuinely fascinating. I think when you start med school you need to retain your ability to be amazed by things, for example it's an incredible experience to use an actual human brain or skull as a learning tool. Yeah after you have had gross anatomy for a few months its not quite as cool, but try to focus on how unique of an experience it is to see the inside of a human body. In addition to the book learning there are a lot of other mind blowing experiences in med school. When you see patients in a hospital you really see a full range of humanity, people at their highest and lowest points in their life. Once you put that white coat on people will tell you things that it seems you have no reason to know, people will tell you things they have not or cannot tell their own spouses and children. These are learning experiences that go beyond drinking from the proverbial fire hose of medical minutiae.

Furthermore, school is a big part of my life, but it is not the entirety of it. During test weeks duh you are going to study a lot, but after tests there is definitely a relative calm in the storm, I would say on average my commitments to school and studying are about 65 hours a week (I know plenty of people who study a lot more, but definitely a bunch who study significantly less than that!) So I still have plenty of free time to go out boozing and hang out with friends. My two main hobbies, lifting weights and martial arts have not suffered greatly since I have started med school. You do have to be flexible tho, sometimes i hit the gym at 10pm, sometimes I study at 6am, If you have some commitment that is always going to be Wednesday from 4:00-6:00pm, well you might miss it sometimes. I have even picked up some new hobbies in med school based on my experiences with people that I have met in my class.

The people you go to med school with will be a very distinct crowd. I feel extremely privileged to call them my colleagues, for the most part they are highly intelligent, confident, and socially adept. It's weird that even people you don't know very well in your class probably have more in common with you than some of your friends from before med school. Not that commonalities is the only component of friendship, but you will certainly meet great people in med school.

-Roy
 
FirefighterDoc said:
Hahaha my new favorite picture on the internet......oh Andy

Thank you BenUstudent for this
Click to expand...
Dude the Lonely Island FTW! I have their Album on Itunes and I :love: it.
I'm on a Boat, I'm on a Boat, Take a good hard look at the ...

btw, FirefigherDoc I'm going with the EMT course (back from the "CNA V.s. EMT course), thanks for your input man I really Appreciate it.
 
mmmcdowe said:
Medical School is like eating 5 pancakes every day. Not a big deal so long as you eat them every day. But, what if you don't want to eat pancakes one day? Well then you have to eat 10 pancakes the next day or 6 pancakes for five days. Pretty soon you end up with 40 pancakes to eat and only a day to do it in.

I stole this metaphor.
Click to expand...
This is a great way to describe it. This is a whole different experience than undergrad and no matter how much you're told about it, you need to experience it to get it. A lot is possible though, you're not giving up your [entire] life for this.
 
RoyBasch said:
It may be too late for a post with regards to the OP' original statement as this thread has kinda gone in the direction of condescension and internetisms, but I'll try and take a stab at the OP.

First off, I think you're experience in med school depends a lot on who you are, so let me leave it at I am a traditional 23 year old male student not in a serious relationship. I can only speak as to the first two years--the academic component. I think my lack of commitments has allowed me to be more relaxed in med school and enjoy it more because I never really feel like doing work for med school is like robbing peter to pay paul: I know people who are married and have children who find med school very taxing when it is stripping time away from people who need them, but that's not personally something that has been an issue for me.

I'm really tired of the firehose metaphor, yeah there is a lot of material, but when people put it that way they make it sound like you are required to learn 10,000 digits of pi. Some of the material is genuinely fascinating. I think when you start med school you need to retain your ability to be amazed by things, for example it's an incredible experience to use an actual human brain or skull as a learning tool. Yeah after you have had gross anatomy for a few months its not quite as cool, but try to focus on how unique of an experience it is to see the inside of a human body. In addition to the book learning there are a lot of other mind blowing experiences in med school. When you see patients in a hospital you really see a full range of humanity, people at their highest and lowest points in their life. Once you put that white coat on people will tell you things that it seems you have no reason to know, people will tell you things they have not or cannot tell their own spouses and children. These are learning experiences that go beyond drinking from the proverbial fire hose of medical minutiae.

Furthermore, school is a big part of my life, but it is not the entirety of it. During test weeks duh you are going to study a lot, but after tests there is definitely a relative calm in the storm, I would say on average my commitments to school and studying are about 65 hours a week (I know plenty of people who study a lot more, but definitely a bunch who study significantly less than that!) So I still have plenty of free time to go out boozing and hang out with friends. My two main hobbies, lifting weights and martial arts have not suffered greatly since I have started med school. You do have to be flexible tho, sometimes i hit the gym at 10pm, sometimes I study at 6am, If you have some commitment that is always going to be Wednesday from 4:00-6:00pm, well you might miss it sometimes. I have even picked up some new hobbies in med school based on my experiences with people that I have met in my class.

The people you go to med school with will be a very distinct crowd. I feel extremely privileged to call them my colleagues, for the most part they are highly intelligent, confident, and socially adept. It's weird that even people you don't know very well in your class probably have more in common with you than some of your friends from before med school. Not that commonalities is the only component of friendship, but you will certainly meet great people in med school.

-Roy
Click to expand...

Roy, thank you for your post! It was insightful and inspiring. =]
 
I like the pancakes analogy best. Medical school is not evil, it's not impossible, and it's not entirely overwhelming. It's a lot of work, sure, and you don't always feel like working. If you can work at it all the time, med school is easy to manage.
 
armybound said:
I like the pancakes analogy best. Medical school is not evil, it's not impossible, and it's not entirely overwhelming. It's a lot of work, sure, and you don't always feel like working. If you can work at it all the time, med school is easy to manage.
Click to expand...

The part thats tough is when the idea of just one more pancake makes you wretch and yet you must continue to consume it in mass quantities. There are times of burnout that are sheer misery. My biggest issue with the preclinical years is that I often had to move so fast through the material that I couldn't really stop to enjoy it. Its definitely doable with a good amount of self discipline but it won't be fun every day.

Third year is a whole 'nother beast. Making yourself get up at 4am so you can go write your notes and then be ignored, or worse unrelentlessly pimped for the rest of your day gets old really fast. Most of my rotations were fantastic, but I had a few where my inner monologue was frequently "just send me home or kill me, give me something to do or put me out of my misery". In addition there were rotations where I was entirely socially isolated from all things not medschool based on the hours. 100+ hour weeks (yes this happens) means any downtime is for sleep or studying or presentation preparation. For those of us who have good time management skills that made the first two years pretty tolerable being at the mercy of your residents poor time management skills can be extremely frustrating. Good social skills go a long way but will not get you out some misery.
 
The workload/difficulty in medical school varies by the year:
- First year tends to have a fairly light to moderate workload. Less difficult than high school and college in that there is no organic chem or multivariable calculus or 25 pg papers to write, but more things to memorize. You will, however, have more free time than in high school or college and still do well on exams as the OP has suggested.
- Second year tends to be slightly more difficult than first year. It gets really busy during the 1-2 months where you are studying for your first board exam.
- Third year sucks, especially during the rotations where you have overnight call. There is more emphasis on application, and less emphasis on memorization. There are some rotations where you wake up at the crack at dawn when it is still dark and then return home late at night when it is also dark outside.
- Fourth year is super light. Aside from sub-internship months, you will have more time you ever had in high school or college.
 
loljkttyl said:
Third year sucks, especially during the rotations where you have overnight call... some rotations where you wake up at the crack at dawn when it is still dark and then return home late at night when it is also dark outside.
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This is somewhat disheartening. In many residencies, this will be your life for 3-5 years. I hope your perspective changes, or you are in for a very miserable time when you graduate...
 
SocialistMD said:
This is somewhat disheartening. In many residencies, this will be your life for 3-5 years. I hope your perspective changes, or you are in for a very miserable time when you graduate...
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Yup, my point exactly...I totally did not choose a surgical residency...
 
It's like something you can never imagine.
 
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